DURHAM – Freshman wing Dariq Whitehead is working toward being ready to return, but it’s not certain that return will come with Duke’s game at Virginia on Saturday.

“He’s really progressed well,” coach Jon Scheyer said of Whitehead on Thursday afternoon. “We didn’t have contact yesterday and he was able to do everything. But today’s the next step of being able to go through an entire practice, and then we’ll evaluate and talk afterward.

“He’s right there. I don’t want to say whether it’s going to happen or not, I want him to feel comfortable and we need to huddle up with our staff … to get a better feel.”

Whitehead has been out since Duke’s game at Virginia Tech on Jan. 23, having missed four games. He suffered a sprain in his lower left leg when he tried to defend a post-entry pass, with the injury initially looking worse than the diagnosis.

Scheyer said after last weekend’s win over UNC that Whitehead, who’s been participating in some pre-game warmups with the Blue Devils before the last three games, was almost back to “full health,” but that the team would be cautious with his return.

“He can add such a different dimension to our team,” Scheyer said last weekend.

The Blue Devils’ last two games seem to both illustrate Duke’s ceiling without the No. 1 recruit of the ’22 class, along with Duke’s floor.

Jeremy Roach (20) and Tyrese Proctor (11) combined for nearly half of Duke’s points in last weekend’s 63-57 win over UNC. The tandem of guards was in control throughout, pushing the pace on the Tar Heels and, when it mattered most, attacking their ball-screen coverages.

And then Monday night’s game at Miami happened.

Roach and Proctor had a combined 13 points and 10 turnovers against Miami, as both struggled to handle Miami’s physical on-ball defense. Live-ball turnovers when Duke’s guards tried to penetrate helped give the Hurricanes 17 fast-break points.

“You can never have too much shooting. And Dariq is more than just a shooter,” Scheyer said. “His thing has been consistently practicing and playing. It’s not ideal getting injured when he did preseason, and then again, I thought was starting to find his rhythm in that Virginia Tech game.”

It has been a bumpy ride for the freshman who entered the season as one of the most-decorated freshmen in the country.

Whitehead suffered a fracture in his right foot that required surgery at the end of August. He missed Duke’s first three games and slowly revved up from there, with his first double-figure-scoring game coming in his ninth game (15 points against Maryland Eastern Shore).

Along with roommate Dereck Lively II, Whitehead missed Duke’s pre-Christmas loss at Wake Forest. He returned from the holiday break and looked like he’d turned a corner, averaging 15.3 points and hitting 10 3-pointers in three games against Florida State, N.C. State and Boston College.

That was followed by a three-game stretch in which he averaged six points per game and shot a combined 6-for-26.

Whitehead appeared to be in the process of breaking loose from that mini-slump at Virginia Tech, when he had 10 early points, before suffering the left leg injury.